Thoughts & Scribbles from a Beachhouse Writer

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Blogging in the New Year

Ok, so it’s a new year and I’m trying to blog – you know, continue that thing I vowed I would keep up with back in 2011 and now it’s already January 3, 2012 and I go to make good on my new vow to write at least weekly, for crying out loud, and I can’t even figure out how to start a new post! Sheesh! So, after 15 minutes of “punching buttons” (as my husband admonishes me for doing on just about everything technological in our house, none of which I understand nor ever read the directions for – isn’t that what husbands and grown kids are for – to show you how to do things?), here I am creating this on a new document from Pages on my MacBook Air, figuring I can cut and paste later when my daughter or son-in-law can tell me how to get to a new post on wordpress.

Actually, I really need to learn my MacBook Air. See, I got it last March when we were on a business trip and I left the power cord to my old computer in the car in the parking lot at RDU, giving us a reason to go buy a whole new computer so we could check our email from our St. Louis hotel room. (Tip: whenever you want something new – a sweatshirt if you’re going where it’s cold; a pair of shorts if you’re going where it’s hot; new sunglasses if you’re going to be outside where it’s sunny; a computer if you don’t need any of the above – you get the drift – just leave home without it and you’ll NEED to buy a new one!) When I bought the computer at the mall in St. Louis, I also paid $99 for UNLIMITED one-on-one sessions for a FULL YEAR with an Apple specialist to TEACH ME IN PERSON how to use the thing! I vowed to learn all about it before my year expired. I did sign up for two sessions while in St. Louis and my husband was in meetings, and, during the first couple of months back home, I drove 40 minutes each way to the store at Crabtree in Raleigh about 3 more times and I learned a lot each time I went. I created my one and only flyer, learned enough about iPhoto to at least download and sort new photos into “events”, and finally learned how to download songs by myself to the iPod I’d had for a few years while I was at it. But I haven’t been back to an Apple store in about 6 months and there’s still SO MUCH I want to learn. “It’s so easy with a Mac,” they say. And it is, for most people. In fact, my 8-year old grandson taught me some things I didn’t know about it when we were at the beach last fall when he was still 7. Jonathan said, “Let’s go into ‘Finder'” and I admitted I didn’t ever go there – I didn’t know what it was FOR! So Jonathan and I played around with taking pictures of ourselves and making the images weird – fat, skinny, art deco – it was SO COOL! Who knew?! Ok, so my year hasn’t run out. I still have time. Two months, a week and 2 days, to be exact. Let’s just add that to my growing list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2012.

Speaking of technology, it just seems to change faster than I can keep up with. As a matter of fact, I’m getting a new iPhone soon since I’m now eligible for a “free upgrade” from Verizon (not sure how “free” it is if you still have to pay $200 for the phone, but hey). It’s “my turn” since the rest of the family has the touch screen phones and even though I still haven’t learned how the heck to make use of 90% of the capability of my BlackBerry, I’ve had it for 2 years, so apparently it’s time to upgrade. Glad I didn’t waste time learning that technological marvel! I did, however, get really good at texting, which I’m a little afraid of on a touch screen. New challenge for 2012, even if I don’t learn all the other ins and outs of that gizmo.

So, I think I started this out about writing a blog post? Well, I think I just did. And I practiced something new I recently learned. They have CHANGED THE RULES – did you know you no longer are to leave two spaces between the period at the end of one sentence, and the beginning of the next??! As I’ve been typing this, I think I have had to backspace between every sentence except 2 or 3. Which is also something I recently learned. Used to be you spelled out single word numbers. Now, apparently, you just type the numerals. Gosh, it’s so weird to be “only” in your early 50’s and to feel so OLD and behind in life!

P.S. For the record, my son-in-law did come to my aid and advised me to make sure I was “signed in to wordpress” and it should be right there. Duh (backspace), Ginny. (backspace) Thanks, Cameron! I did the cutting and pasting all by myself!